SUMMARY:  LC 48 0500  LC 49 0889S

The substitute bill passed by the Senate is considerably different from the original bill. Note it now provides statewide choice for military students and requires every school district to have a transfer process for military students. 

The bill defines "military service member" as an active duty member or a deployed reserve member of the US Army, Navy, Marines, Air Force, Space Force, Coast Guard, or National Guard, whose state of legal residence is GA, lists GA as his or her home of record, or who within the previous 12 months has received official military orders of assignment to an installation located in GA.  

Beginning with the 2022-2023 school year, a dependent child of a military service member shall be allowed to attend any public school in the state of his or her parent's choosing subject to available room.  The parent would be responsible for transportation. 

Each school system must establish a universal, streamlined process available to all military students to implement the transfer requirements and annually notify, prior to the school year, the parents of each military student who currently reside in the local school system by letter, by electronic means, or by such other reasonable means in a timely manner or the options available to the parent under the Code section.

Each receiving school system (the district into which the military student transfers) shall report each military student who has transferred to the district for purposes of funding to the Department of Education.  State QBE funds including the local five mill share alloted to the resident school system shall be reallotted to the receiving school system.

EFFECTIVE DATE:

July 1, 2022